Home Toronto Raptors Friday Nov 23 2012

I was happy to see Lawrence Frank make timeouts and substitutions that made sense tonight he saw that JJ wasnt playing well and instead of taking out Andre to bring Monroe back in, he took out JJ and this let our twin towers do some damage. The addition of the twin tower lineup also forced Toronto bigs to actually have to account for their men on all offensive rebounding situations and Monroes ability to pass from the high post allowed Andre to flash across the baseline keeping torontos big flattened out in the low post giving Greg more room to operate and drive from the ft line. This alsoforced the guards for toronto to drop in more on greg at the ft line and allowed Singler and Bk to get some open looks. With Torontos guards and pf playing so spaced it gave Andre room to get the 8 offensive boards...its all about the spacing folks. I loved the fact that in the end when we needed the stop, Lawrence Frank had the faith in Andre to sub him in for Monroe to challenge and force Lowry into that circus floater which ended up as the stop that gave Knight the chance for the go ahead and eventual winner. The confidence that this gave Andre I think will be huge in his developement. He looked like a kid on xmas on the sidelines to end the game. He is such an emotional player that he needs those boosts right now to see his confidence bloom and you can see it in his game. Every time he makes a good play...he seems to get that extra oomph in his step. Great step forward by coach,

It was awesome seeing Drummond finish out the game last night. I think they should sit him now until the new year just to be prudent and give him a chance to absorb his success. I'd hate for him to be overwhelmed.

Since my son missed the game last night, I watched it a 2nd time with him today. I will describe some stuff toward the end of the game. Knight came up pretty huge, and so did Tay. At 3:30 we were down five. Knight drove in and cut it to 3. Then he tripled to tie it. But more heroics were needed yet, as they went up by 3 a couple more times yet before the end of the game. Knight was getting to the foul line. Tay posted up successfully twice, first on McGuire (sp) and then on Amir. Finally, Knight drove in for the bucket that put up one with 7 seconds to go, and no timeouts left. Knight put some pressure on Lowry as he missed a shot from the left. Game won.

Also, it was not the rookie Drummond messing up in crunch time, but the slightly more seasoned Monroe. Drummond comes up with a totally improbable steal, moving to his right, covering a lot of ground, and letting his length do the rest - knocking down a well thrown bounce pass then picking it up for the steal. But Monroe shortly after did the cha cha to give it back. Later, Monroe collapsed in when everyone else alread had - forgetting all about Andrea completely alone in the left corner. That put us 3 down again.

I want to restate what happened on the pass Drummond stole. That was no errant pass. Drummond was nowhere near the play when the pass was released, and the pass was a good crisp bounce pass. The guy is just that quick and knows how to use his length to make him seem even quicker.

Also a note on Bynum's play. Upon review, its still no good. But I will mention yet another pass from him to Drummond for a dunk. And JJ, yet another minus 10 game. I slow mo'd a lot his sequences. He looks even more insignificant to the plays than ever that way.

The whole team has played pretty badly most of the season so far. Playing with either Monroe, who had early season troubles shooting and horrible D, or with a rookie in Drummond, solely at a position he is undersized for has gotta make it harder.

Add to that he played in the Euro qualifiers for Sweden where he is a focal point, then comes back to where he only gets the occasional shot.

I think he could turn it around if he got minutes at SF. Unfortunately, if Kravtsov continues to sit, Maggette continues to play SF and Tay takes most of the minutes there too, then he won't get a chance.

My biggest worry is that Maggette's presence and the poor play means JJ becomes trade bait and he goes somewhere else and makes the impact elsewhere we know he can. I like the the way he has been helping the rookies. But surely Maggette is only here for this season.